Latest Interviews

Hailing from Australia, Laura Wilde already has a well-shaped leg up with great looks and a fabulous accent. But it’s her rip-your-head-off, full-fledged guitar assault that’ll really get your attention. No gimmicks. No backing down. Just gonna have-a-good-time raunch rock with fierce guitar riffs, searingly unapologetic lyrics and a driving back line. Oh yeah. Remember when rock was rockin’? Now you know what I’m talking about.

If you’ve ever wondered how the influences of classical guitarist Andres Segovia and The Shadows’ instro-rocking legend Hank Marvin might blend, no doubt your imagination could take you to many places. It’s not that surprising, then, to learn that you might find Steve Hackett — a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee in 2010 for his work with Genesis — at the end of your journey.

In 2008, Shirley Manson presented a handful of tracks to the big wigs at Geffen Records. The songs — which she had been working on since roughly 2006, and were supposed to be part of her debut solo album — were immediately deemed "too noir." Not long after, Manson was free from her contract with Geffen.

After welcoming back guitarist Dino Cazares into the band and putting out a successful seventh studio album Mechanize in early 2010, modern metal giants Fear Factory have returned. Their follow-up album, The Industrialist, is ready to release early next month. This conceptual record also features bassist Matt DeVries on bass, who has replaced Byron Stroud.

It isn’t difficult for Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist, songwriter, producer and all-around conceptual mastermind for art-rock unit the Mars Volta, to define the role that music and creativity plays in his life. “It’s all there is,” he says simply. “I have no other agenda. I don’t want to rule the world, I don’t have a lust for money, I’m not obsessed with sex. Expressing myself through my art is everything. And I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to be able to do it for a living. So what the hell else should I spend my time doing?”

While 1990's Cowboys From a Hell was a radical reinvention for a band that wrote "Ride My Rocket," Vulgar Display of Power was the next logical step in the evolution of Pantera, further refining their signature recipe of equal parts groove and thrash into a piledriving cacophony truly worthy of the tag "vulgar."

Vocalist Travis Ryan has been fronting vegetarian grindcore band Cattle Decapitation since 1997, back when the band was a side project for members of The Locust. With more than nine albums under his belt, including a new one with his side project, Murder Construct, Ryan recently sat down with Guitar World to discuss all things Cattle Decapitation, including a switch in their lineup and their new album, Monolith of Inhumanity, which came out May 8 via Metal Blade Records.

In 1981, 16-year-old guitarist Larry Barragan put together the first incarnation of Helstar. Two years and several lineup changes later, the teenage band from Houston, Texas, recorded their first demo and broke through as a hit on the underground scene, quickly gaining national and international attention. Considering that this was long before the age of Internet access and social media, it was no small feat. By the time 1983 came to a close, Helstar had signed their first record deal with Combat Records.

In 1967, American-born animator Bob Balser was working on a project in Spain when he received an invitation to fly to London and try his hand at designing animated characters based on the Beatles. The project? A full-length cartoon feature film called Yellow Submarine. “They had to get started quickly, because they had a screening date set for July of the following year,” Balser recalls. “They had just one year to do an entire feature-length animated film.”

Led by master shredder Gus G, Greek power metal band Firewind have enjoyed a loyal fan following in Europe for more than a decade, and their fan base in other territories is always growing. They've come a long way since Gus started the band as a small project, and they're ready to release their seventh studio album, Few Against Many.